Colleagues describe Hammam Battah as optimistic and personable. They know him as someone who has always excelled in scientific subjects—especially math and Physics—and point to him as the “go to” person when you need a solution to a complex problem. In fact, this latter characteristic served as Battah’s impetus to help solve one of the world’s most pressing issues, which is the growing shortage of fresh water in the southwest United States, and countries throughout the world. Years of research and perseverance made it possible for him to do something many engineers have only dreamed of: desalinating water using solar energy and converting the stored energy into electricity. Both of these cost-efficient discoveries elevated Battah’s status to double patent inventor by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for the Solar Distillation System and the Solar Thermal Energy Conversion System.

Battah earned his Bachelor of Science and Master of Science degrees in civil engineering from the University of Baghdad, and immediately started a career building power, water treatment and other industrial plants in Iraq as an employee and subcontractor, and jointly with foreign companies from New Zealand, France, Germany, Czechoslovakia (Czech and Slovak Federative Republic), Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro), Great Britain, and Italy. After immigrating to the United States in 1994, he worked with engineering companies in Ohio and Michigan, eventually becoming associate civil engineer at Detroit Water & Sewerage Department.

Battah has three more scientific breakthroughs awaiting patent approval: a Wave Breaker System, a Solar Distillation System with no reject water, and an improvement on the existing Solar Distillation System patent. He is listed in Who's Who in the World, 2007 edition; Who's Who in Science and Engineering, 2007 edition; and Who's Who in America, 2006 edition.

He and his wife, Haifa, have two sons, and are the proud grandparents of a granddaughter. Battah says he enjoys a good soccer game and track and field events when time permits, which isn’t very often. Why? Because of that same passion we mentioned earlier. He’s busy solving major problems facing mankind, one patent at a time.